Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Robocop

"Tastes like baby food!"

I don't know how Peter Weller does so little with his face and still manages to be such a great actor. I guess it's his expressionlessness that gives him character. And also what makes him perfectly convincing as Robocop.

To quickly summarize, Paul Verhoeven's Robocop takes place sometime in the future in crime-ridden Detroit. The police force is relatively weak compared to the criminals, and a big corporation decides to market robot police officers. When there are setbacks in the plan, they decide they must create a hybrid human-robot that embodies the best of both worlds.

The film certainly doesn't waste any time getting into the action. The first robot (the hilariously stop-motion animated ED-209), malfunctions within seconds of his introduction. And the transformation from Officer Murphy to Robocop takes just one quick cut. This leaves plenty of time for campy violence and quotable one-liners. Which is of course the reason people watch this film in the first place.

Now I might be biased because I am a huge fan of camp (yes, Peter Jackson's Dead Alive is in my top ten), but I thought this movie was pretty fun overall. Apart from the fact that I am getting a little mad at Netflix. The quality of their streaming films is awful. And the DVDs always seem to skip, this time making me me miss the scene where Robocop comes face-to-face with his murderer. Luckily though, this film is not very plot driven, so I put together the pieces pretty easily.

I wish I was able to see Robocop when it came out, back when no one really had computers, because I'm sure it would've seemed super innovative. Nonetheless, I think it passes the test of time and holds up wonderfully.